Though user experience design (UX design) evolves with changing technologies and trends, there are certain timeless best practices that never go out of style. Following these simple guidelines will help ensure consistent, user-friendly products.
Make important information visually distinct with shapes, colours, font size and weight to help users quickly grasp messages without confusion and proceed on their journey without delay.
Visual Hierarchy
Visual hierarchy is a principle of design that allows you to establish the order of importance among visual elements. You can do this using differences in colors and contrast, scale, alignment and composition to achieve it. Visual hierarchy helps your most essential items stand out to users so they can quickly locate what they’re searching for and comprehend your site more quickly.
Bold text against a white background makes it clear that this section of content has more importance than others on the page, since its bigger size and standout stand out against the background, drawing eyes toward that area first. That is why having an established visual hierarchy in your designs is so critical.
One common error many designers make when it comes to visual hierarchy is confusing contrasting colors with visual hierarchy. While using contrastive hues can help highlight certain aspects of your design, they shouldn’t be used randomly or for no discernable reason. When selecting colors to use consistently in your design – for instance if creating visual hierarchy with headings – choose subtle variations like gray with accent colors like red or blue that do not compete for attention as strongly with each other – rather use subdued tones with just enough pop compared with bright hues competing for attention like other bright shades would.
Size is another key component in creating visual hierarchy. Larger elements stand out more and grab the eye, making them more noticeable and elevating them higher up the hierarchy. But that doesn’t mean your most essential elements need to be enormous; larger elements may become too distracting and overwhelming for users so it is best to keep them small.
One final way of creating visual hierarchy is with white space. By giving each element plenty of breathing room between them and creating more white space in between them, they’ll look more dramatic and feel more important compared to if there was too little separation or no space at all between them – which would cause it to appear cluttered and less important overall.
Clear Navigation
Website visitors typically come to find information, so it’s vital that it be presented easily accessible. If users can’t easily locate what they need on your website they won’t stay around – making clear navigation one of the primary objectives for all designers.
Unclear and organized navigation is one of the key UX design tips that should be implemented across websites, mobile apps, or any digital interfaces. Doing this quickly improves user experience on any website while making visitors feel at home on it – not to mention helping boost SEO by using keywords correctly so as to give you more targeted search results.
Keep in mind that your navigation should remain consistent across pages and platforms, as this helps users quickly acclimate themselves. Furthermore, sticking to conventions also means your design remains recognisable to visitors.
Avoid overcrowding your navigation with too many terms; this will cause visitors to become confused and could result in them leaving. Icons may help identify each section more effectively than just using color as the sole method for denotation; color can sometimes cause unnecessary confusion while not contributing to accessibility.
When designing text, make sure it is legible by considering font size and type as well as color consistency with your brand. Be wary of any overpowering hues when selecting colors; be sure to test in greyscale mode to assess how it works with people with color blindness. For added assistance choosing appropriate hues there are tools online which can assist. Lastly, test designs on various devices to see how well they function.
White Space
Focusing the viewer’s attention and leading them through your design are both vital. Just as songs or conversations shouldn’t be an uninterrupted barrage of sound and information, so too should your UI/UX designs not become an overwhelming mass of content or design elements that overloads and disorients. Doing this would only serve to confuse and bore audiences in its absence – leaving no mental and visual relief or structure at all for viewers.
White space (commonly referred to as negative space) can help mitigate this by providing your design with room to breathe and creating space for individual elements on-screen. Macro white spaces can help guide users through blocks of content on your page while micro white spaces create blank areas around specific elements within it.
This will allow you to easily highlight the key aspects of your design while making it scannable and clearer for users to comprehend. For instance, when placing a CTA button within an area with plenty of whitespace surrounding it so it stands out and draws users’ attention towards itself.
On the left is an image showing too little passive and micro white space between characters, rows and paragraphs resulting in compressed text that makes reading difficult. On the right there is sufficient white space between words and lines which makes reading much simpler.
White space is one of the essential tools in user experience design. It can make or break a design, as well as be used to prioritize certain design elements over others. By using it effectively, white space can make your website more appealing to visitors while giving it its own distinctive design style that stands out from competitors. Too little or too much white space may cause your design to appear chaotic; when used wisely it can result in a clean and clutter-free design that appeals to users’ eyes and offers them ease of navigation.
Simplicity
UX design puts users first. Your product should make accomplishing goals as effortless and effortless as possible for users without creating frustration or slowing them down through design. Instead of reinventing the wheel, try following established patterns which work for most apps and websites, such as using consistent designs patterns for navigation bars that reduce visual clutter wherever possible.
Reducing visual clutter requires using intuitive graphics or buttons that won’t confuse or overburden users, instead opting for simple iconography or typography that conveys meaning without adding extraneous visual complexity. Furthermore, if an interaction can be completed with just one click rather than multiple steps – users appreciate simplicity over complexity, and are more likely to complete their tasks when an experience is clear and intuitive.
Consistency is also key for an enjoyable user experience, from visual and interaction styles across your web or app pages, as well as product terminology. For instance, when using text in headers as links it’s crucial that its color remains constant across your entire site or app as using different hues may cause users who are already familiar with your site or app to feel off-putted by any differences they encounter in link text colors.
One way to ensure consistent designs across the team is to establish a design system that all team members, even non-UX designers, can utilize. This can be accomplished through creating a style guide containing colors, fonts and other visuals used by all developers – this will help keep things consistent while decreasing development times for new features.
If you’re uncertain if an element is essential, seek feedback from your development team before proceeding. They can offer invaluable insight into what works and doesn’t, while providing insights into whether your ideas are technically viable.
